Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Borregaard's pre-close call for the second quarter of 2025. My name is Knut-Harald Bakke. I'm the Director of Investor Relations, and I'm joined today by CFO Per Bjarne Lyngstad, and we are live from the bio refinery in Norway. The agenda for today's call is the following. First, we will look at the outlook from the latest quarterly report. Secondly, we will look at tariffs, the possible first and second order effects for Borregaard, as communicated on the Q1 result presentation. Thirdly, we will look at currencies and commodities inputs that are publicly observable. Finally, we will have a Q&A session. Regarding the Q&A session, feel free to start typing your questions in the chat function already now.
Now I will hand over to Per Bjarne, who will reiterate the key points from the outlook given in our latest quarterly report.
Thank you, Knut-Harald, and good afternoon, everyone. I will start with reiterating the key points from the outlook, and when relevant, refer to comments given in the Q&A session at the webcast for the first quarter on the 30th of April this year. I will start with BioSolutions. In BioSolutions, the outlook after the first quarter was quite similar as to what we said after the fourth quarter presentation in late January. The sales volume is expected to be approximately 330,000 tons for the full year of 2025, driven by strong sales to agriculture. This also implies a positive mix effect. Over time now, agriculture has grown to become the clear number one market for BioSolutions. Last year, agriculture was well above 40% of total revenues in BioSolutions.
The sales volume in the second quarter is expected to be approximately 85,000 tons, which is seasonally higher than in the first quarter. However, in the second quarter, we expect a less favorable product mix, as we normally have lower sales, a lower share of specialties. Still, the sales will be driven by strong sales to agriculture also in the second quarter. We continue to expect a positive but limited effect from the anti-dumping duties on vanillin. We got several questions regarding the outlook and market situation for BioSolutions at the webcast. The first questions were related to agriculture. We were asked if we could give some more flavor on what is driving the strong uplift in profits for the agriculture products, if we have launched new products and hired new sales teams, and is demand from customers shifting.
The answer from our side was that it's connected to the fact that our products are green, and green are favorable right now, especially in new developments like biocontrol. Our products are quite unique in properties. For example, farmers like to blend different products like fertilizers and pesticides so that they don't have to put them into the fields several times. This saves them time, and it saves them costs. Our product is an enabler for blending different kinds of products before you add them into the fields. We have recently established an agricultural lab in Mumbai in India, and we are consistently developing and improving our products. It's really the focus on biocontrol and green aspects of the products that's driving the strong growth in agriculture.
The next question was about the 2% average price increase in sales currency in the first quarter compared with the first quarter of 2024. Is that the fair assumption for the remainder of the year, or is that to a large extent impacted by product mix changes? We confirmed that the average price was primarily driven by product mix improvement. The pricing in itself is fairly flat in currency. Turning to BioMaterials, the sales volume in 2025 is forecast to be approximately 150,000 tons, which is in the low end of what we guided for in the beginning of the year. The change in the volume forecast is mainly due to increased uncertainty introduced with tariffs and trade wars. However, the share of highly specialized grades is expected to be higher than in 2024.
The average price in sales currency is still expected to be 8%-10% higher in the first half of 2025 compared with the first half of last year. A large share of the portfolio has the potential for a sales price adjustment on July 1st. How that will play out remains to be seen. The sales volume in the second quarter is expected to be largely in line with what we saw in the second quarter last year, which means that it will be quite a solid quarter volume-wise. We also got several questions regarding the outlook for BioMaterials at the webcast. The first question was on BioMaterials volumes. How much visibility do we have on the remaining 115,000 tons we estimate will be delivered through 2025? And if we could shed some light on how customer discussions have progressed in recent months.
Our response was that the practice in speciality cellulose, which is a part of BioMaterials, is to have multi-year volume-based contracts and annual price negotiations. This year, semi-annual price negotiations. The practice among customers is that they typically have two or three suppliers. If the customer needs less volume than estimated in the contract, typically the customers split that evenly between the different suppliers. As far as we can see, the construction market is still soft. Historically, that is the most cyclical customer group. In addition, there is also cheap cotton linter pulp available, which is an alternative product coming out of China. The other customer groups are more stable and even counter-cyclical. We are following and watching closely the demand from the construction people.
The next question was that it seems like Borregaard have sort of changed price terms in BioMaterials from annual to semi-annual negotiations, or at least partly. We were asked to explain why that is and how much flexibility we have to increase prices if costs increase. Our response was that this is not something that we necessarily think is desirable. If you look at the recent five years, it started with the COVID pandemic, and after a while, abrupt changes in costs that required price adjustments. We made price adjustments back in 2020 and 2021 that were outside of the contracted price increases. In order to have that flexibility both between the customers and us, we have introduced semi-annual price negotiations for some customers. Historically, if you go back 10 - 15 years, we also had annual pricing on wood costs in Norway. That is also now semi-annual.
It's something that has evolved. It's not necessarily something we would like to see, but that's the fact, and it gives us more flexibility if necessary. Moving on to Fine Chemicals, where the favorable incentives in advanced bioethanol have triggered substantial new supply from agricultural waste and other sources. That's why the sales prices for Borregaard's bioethanol are expected to be significantly lower than what we saw last year. It's also going to be lower than what we achieved in 2022. After the fourth quarter presentation, we said it would be lower than in 2024 and probably more in line with 2022 pricing. The development we saw in the first quarter makes us believe that it will come even below the 2022 price level. The sales volume for fine chemical intermediates is expected to increase compared with 2024.
On the cost side, wood costs have been on a high level for some time. We expect no change in the wood cost level in the second quarter compared with what we saw in the first quarter. We got a question regarding wood costs at the webcast, whether it was fair to say that wood costs have increased more than we expected when we negotiated 2025 prices in November. Our response was that we do not think so, except for slightly more logistics costs for inbound transportation of wood. The wood cost is much higher than in the first half of last year, obviously, but we said it will be comparable to the second half of last year, and it has been slightly higher, driven then by more logistics costs. It is a minor, it is not a big thing.
Leaving the wood costs, we continue to see reduced energy costs from the recent investments. The environmental investments that we have made, for instance, in the electrification of our spreaders in biopolymers, give reduced energy consumption and reduced energy costs. As intended with these investments, also reduced CO2 emissions. As to the energy cost, remember that the energy consumption is normally lower in the summer season and higher during winter. About 15% of Borregaard's energy consumption is dependent on energy spot prices for electricity and LNG. For LNG, we have a one-month delay compared with the market price, which is TTF. Electricity prices in Norway have on average been above last year's prices so far in the second quarter. Also, LNG prices have so far been higher than last year, taking the one-month delay into consideration.
The higher spot prices should, to a large extent, be offset by Borregaard's reduced energy consumption related to the spray dryer investment at the site in Norway. There are still war and conflicts affecting the global economy. The general disclaimer at the end of the outlook is reminding you of that. We will have to be aware of that and take necessary precautions as things play out. In the first quarter presentation, we had a slide and talked about tariffs and how they could impact Borregaard. On the slide, we showed Borregaard's sales distribution in 2024. As an export company, Borregaard is slightly more tilted towards other regions than Europe. 46% of our sales were in Europe, 23% in Asia, and 30% in the Americas.
If we look specifically at the United States, which currently have introduced a 10% tariff on imports into the US from Norway, 23% of our sales last year were in the U.S.. The remaining 7% were in other parts of the Americas. We have two production facilities in the U.S.. The local U.S. lignin production and sales constituted roughly 13% of Borregaard's total sales last year. Whereas the export from Norway into the U.S. was roughly 10% of total sa.les for Borregaard. The export that we do into the U.S. is speciality cellulose. It's bio-vanillin, and it's specialties in biopolymers, mostly quite unique products. The sales of speciality cellulose are quite recent because of the closure of two speciality cellulose mills in the U.S. and Canada. Our expectation this year is that regardless of the tariffs, we would have reduced sales into the U.S. from Norway.
Last year was an exceptional year with 10% of sales coming from Norway going into the U.S.. These are the direct effects. We think that these are quite balanced because the majority of the sales in the U.S. are produced and sold in the U.S.. The imports into the U.S. are mostly quite highly specialized products that are difficult to copy, and there are few alternatives to them. If we look at the second order effects, these are the most difficult to predict. Borregaard has a hedging policy on foreign exchange, which gives predictability on the exchange rates for the next two to three years. Even though we have costs in Norwegian kroner, we have hedged the currency both in dollars and euros. The currency will be impacted here if there is a change. We have the more indirect effect of customer's customer.
Borregaard has 36% of its sales into Europe. Most of these customers are global companies that produce for the whole world market. Indirectly, some of our products will end up in other products that will be sold to the U.S.. However, Borregaard is extremely diversified. We have 800 products and sell to more than 100 countries. History, for instance, during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, has shown that Borregaard has a lot of options and alternatives in the marketplace. Our major concern is that the trade wars may result in a general recession. Of course, all kinds of products will be impacted somehow eventually. We think that our geographic exposure and our 800 products in the portfolio gives us a good starting point.
The specialization strategy in itself is the best recipe for handling this situation because products that are difficult to copy will always be in demand. Having completed the outlook, we will point to one more element which is likely to have quite an impact on 2025 results. Borregaard has a currency hedging strategy that delays the impact of changes in currency rates. Using currency rates as of the 30th of April, the net currency impact for the full year of 2025 was estimated to be positive by NOK 125 million compared with 2024. The corresponding impact for the first quarter of 2025 was estimated to be positive by about NOK 40 million compared with the first quarter of 2024. We continue to see a strengthening of the Norwegian kroner so far in the second quarter, especially compared with the US dollar.
If yesterday's rates continue the rest of the month, we will see a slightly lower net currency impact in the second quarter, closer to NOK 35 million compared with the NOK 40 million based on the calculation from the 30th of April. If today's or if yesterday's rates continue for the rest of the year, the net currency impact will be more in the range of NOK 100 million positive compared with the NOK 125 million based on the calculation from the 30th of April. Today, the Central Bank of Norway quite surprisingly lowered the interest rates in Norway by 0.25%. We have seen a slight weakening of the NOK after that. Just as we speak, the currency impact might be a little bit more positive than the numbers that I gave based on yesterday's currency rates.
We got a set of questions on currency during the webcast in April. This was, can you please help us understand what is behind the reported net currency impact in 2025, estimated to be approximately plus NOK 125 million compared with 2024? What part of this estimate comes from the financial gain from hedges? What part of this estimate is due to operational aspects such as lower Norwegian sales prices of exports? To the two first questions, we responded that the net currency effect comes mainly from two elements. It is the change in hedging losses, and it is the currency rate movements. That is really what explains at least 95% of the change from what we reported after the fourth quarter. At the end of the fourth quarter, we reported an impact for 2025 of NOK 220 million.
After the first quarter, we reported a net positive impact of NOK 125 million. The main reason is a strengthening of the Norwegian kroner. This is a way to explain everything else equal, the impact from currencies. Pricing, which was the third question, is totally separate from this. When we go through the business areas in our quarterly presentations, we talk about sales price development in sales currency, excluding both the hedging effects and sales currency movements compared with the Norwegian kroner. In general, we do from time to time try to help analysts and investors to better understand how we calculate the net currency impact. To use the first quarter as an example, we calculate the net currency impact to be positive by NOK 45 million compared with the first quarter of 2024.
Hedging losses in the first quarter was NOK 95 million compared with a loss of NOK 89 million in the first quarter of 2024. The change was negative by NOK 6 million, which means that the impact from currency rates were NOK 45 million plus NOK 6 million, NOK 51 million. You arrive at the net currency impact. An approximation for the calculation of currency rates could be to use the US dollar and euro exposure from last year in the footnote on the currency slide that we show every quarter, divided by four to get the quarterly exposure. Multiply the quarterly exposure by the change in average currency rates for the two quarters you compare. Timing differences for hedging and the actual hedges hedge sales and exposure in other currencies than the US dollar and the euro will explain differences compared with the proposed calculation.
Over time, we see that just focusing on US dollar and euro and using last year's exposure have been a quite good approximation for the actual number as we calculate. If you think this reasoning was difficult to follow, and I can fully understand that, we will be more than happy to set up a Teams meeting to show you how we do this calculation given the information we share in our quarterly presentation. I will now hand over to Knut-Harald , who will lead the Q&A session with questions asked in the chat function of this webcast.
Thank you, Per Bjarne. We will now open the floor to questions from our listeners. As Per Bjarne said, please use the chat function to submit your questions, and we will address them where possible and as time permits. There seems to be no questions.
It must mean, Per Bjarne, that everything is crystal clear.
Let's hope so.
Thank you for attending, and until next time, goodbye.
Thank you.